ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

The thing about abstention is it's just cowardly, they clearly don't agree with the bill, they just don't believe they can win the argument so they're hoping that as few people as possible are looking at them while it's happening.

Starmer's own version of the Clause Four showdown will be replacing the Labour rose with a giant poppy.

the narrative has already been decided. Starmer's intention is to win back the votes of a bunch of Blue Labour/white working class/Red Wall types and calculate on that being enough plus the old "nowhere else to go" voters stringing along.

even if his electoral calculus is correct - that seems very doubtful to me - and even if losing a bunch of us who will not vote for that shit doesn't have an impact - maybe less doubtful but still probably not really calculated - i strongly doubt he's gonna convince the voters he thinks matters so much to vote for milquetoast fascism when the real deal is on offer from the actual government

this is like the Charge of the Light Brigade redux except not all of the Light Brigade were cunts

Starmer's own version of the Clause Four showdown will be replacing the Labour rose with a giant poppy.

Looking forward to this season's minutes silences

Red Wall in and of itself isn't enough, they have to win back the Red Wall and parts of Scotland and swathes of Southern England and those areas are pulling in such different directions that it's almost impossible to see what might appeal to them all.

tell that to Kieth

My answer to that might once have been 'policies that will materially improve people's lives' but it's hard to escape the overwhelming sense that there's a chunk of voters who have just given up on the very idea of that being possible.

I think the answer to 'lives getting better' ended up being Brexit for enough people Don't know what happens when life gets worse..

blame the EU, immigrants, any out group you care to choose; more fascism

xp it’s more that there’s such a chunk of pensioners living in homes paid off with triple-locked pensions in alliance with the rich and comfortable who don’t want any of the people they consider undeserving to share in it. Politics of spite. I know several people arguing their parents about this last December, it’s fucking scary the extent to which voting for their children’s future no longer makes an impression.

Anyway, here’s Momentum

This you @Keir_Starmer? pic.twitter.com/oJl8EsKIsq

— Momentum 🌹 (@PeoplesMomentum) September 24, 2020

demographics are on our side, people under 40 are not getting the comfortable life which makes them buy into the system.

Maybe depends on whether this works in a world where newspapers are less of a thing and where the problems might be different, i.e. your house is flooded.

Yeah but it’ll be too late by then.

Boris dodged the floods last year and the north still voted for him in numbers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

it doesn't matter about demographics unless there's a mainstream party that represents change

They disbanded after the Euros last year, sorry.

it's "Democratic People's Republic" level bulshittery that the only policy of Change UK was "let's not change the UK"

i said mainstream tbf

Demographics are a thing too although I think a lot of younger people are radicalised in different directions.

Do think also much of the Lab offer wasn't radical enough during the Corbyn years. Social democracy is a huge part of the story of this country post-WWII (Thatcher is really known as someone who fought against it) and I think it's return got short shrift from a public that knew we got here by having that stuff in the first place.

Yeah but it’ll be too late by then.

― ciorapomenitul (gyac), Thursday, 24 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

That isn't really true. Climate change isn't a big bang event.

There a graph that I can no longer find that broke down the last decade's worth of elections by age - the blue and red lines were much closer together in 2010, the blue had the slight edge on the red among older voters but it wasn't that pronounced. They'd started to diverge by 2015 and then massively by 2017, young voters overwhelmingly voted Labour and pensioners overwhelmingly voted Tory.

The difference between 2017 and 2019 was that in the first election, Labour and the Tories were virtually neck and neck among middle-aged voters (Labour had more of the 40-somethings and the Tories slighty more of the 50-somethings, it evened out in general). In 2019, Labour had lost the middle-aged decisively - understanding why is the important thing and there were plenty of conflicting reasons.

So forget about spiteful pensioners, they aren't going to be won round, it's the middle-aged that need to be convinced. Obviously a lot of these are a) at parenting age and b) worrying about their own ageing parents. If the government's response to the pandemic is going to swing voter intention, it's going to happen there.

Suspect it is only going to be worse without the newspapers, which have acted as a bit of a restraint on the total lunacy of WhatsApp-forward-land. The BBC, massively imperfect as it is, has been an unhelpful weight against the Foxicification of radio and TV, so that’ll change too.

The goal is the perfect combo of nothing-matters-nothing-is-true social (QAnon already making inroads among the whatsappery here) with truly polarised broadcast.

They can wedge-issue and voter-disenchant themselves to power for a century on that sort of terrain.

and c) gammons

xpost

The other way in which the pandemic might have an effect is remote white collar workers moving out of cities and taking their voting habits with them.

Yeah but it’ll be too late by then.

― ciorapomenitul (gyac), Thursday, 24 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

That isn't really true. Climate change isn't a big bang event.

"WhatsApp-forward-land"

Isn't the demographics for this at the older end?

the comments under the momentum tweet along the lines of "this arguing amongst yourselves is why labour are out of power for a generation!" are as annoying as ever, need to draw a clear line that blue labour oxford ppe career politician cunts are not "us" and any movement which seeks to include them is probably doomed.

The west is already going full fascist on small numbers, what happens when hot regions become uninhabitable and bigger numbers of people start moving north?
― ciorapomenitul (gyac), Thursday, 24 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

A lot of borders could become unsustainable?

The right is much, much better at making electoral hay from disasters than the left or even the centre is, that's been shown time and time again in recent years. And in any case, climate change isn't going to be an election-defining event for years, maybe even decades.

I don't believe that younger voters are exactly immune to dumb conspiracy theory thinking either.

'Climate change becomes more pronounced -> people demand action on climate change -> this benefits the left' is the sort of logical, linear thinking that never seems to actually play out.

my one full covid conspiracy chum is in his 20s so yep

"WhatsApp-forward-land"

Isn't the demographics for this at the older end?

"The right is much, much better at making electoral hay from disasters"

Like in 1945?

Seriously though the upcoming disasters could be of such scale that electoral answers will seem highly inadequate. Just looking at the response to a thing like covid here..

The number of red rose emoji student dickheads on Twitter who seem very attracted to antisemetic conspiracy theories also suggests this sort of thinking doesn't break down by age.

The problem isn't necessarily age, it's a mistrust of information sources and an inability to distinguish between reliable information and bullshit. The mainstream press has helped fuel this environment in numerous ways but we are moving towards a complete free-for-all.

The numbers on supporting lockdown/mask wearing in public suggest these people are still very much in the minority but they're a growing one.

I know it wasn’t the point but gyac seemed otm with the “too late” simply because I want change before I’m in my 60s and that’s how long it will take if we have to wait for the last Boomer voter to cast their final ballot. And the Right will have pivoted its offer by then anyway.

I got an URGENT letter from Labour this morning saying they were suckers and my membership is about to close and so please renew so we can go forward together.... etc. Love to get mailshot that is paid for by donations from Bet365 and various billionaire property developers and contemptuously throw it in the bin. Can't wait for the next membership audit when they find out at as well as the mass desertion, at least 80000 of them were apolitical entryists who only joined to vote for Babs for leader and aren't renewing.

The thing about the Right's offer..

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/24/rishi-sunak-to-unveil-new-covid-economic-support-measures-furlough

Thank you all for your messages of support. My statement below: pic.twitter.com/7pZWFUYZzs

— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) September 24, 2020

i just Tweeted her some love, yeah

That was good.

Sadly others have not come through as hoped

A really important read from @DanJarvisMP 👇 https://t.co/TNRUXV9rwS

— Charlotte Nichols (@charlotte2153) September 23, 2020

RLB should have ran a venomous campaign against KS instead of the milquetoast crap her team presided over. It should have been: this is a life death struggle for the soul of the party, are you really going to trust a reconstructed Tory cunt QC to continue in a centre-left direction? Even if didn't work they could have gone down fighting instead of the pathetic manner they fizzled into insignificance in the face of a blatant right-wing takeover.

Not the whole tweet but prefer it this way.

@DanJarvisMP
29m
This is utter bullshit.

so the furlough scheme is finishing and being replaced with... something which is very similar to the furlough scheme?

This scheme is so much less generous than the headlines make it look! This chart shows the reality https://t.co/uSF1YzNxqJ

— Tom Walker (@tomwalkr) September 24, 2020

Cue the usual slavering that occurs whenever Rishi gets his package out

according to the bbc super Rishi has such strength and agility, he could crush a grape whilst jumping over a doll's house.

Sunak will be PM within the year.